Earthwatch— Global environmental assessment

Progress of the United Nations Environment Program, Earthwatch, since its inception in 1972 is critically reviewed. The conclusion is reached that, while UNEP has provided support for several important programs in cooperation with United Nations specialized agencies, the new global assessment perspective envisioned at the 1972 Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment has not evolved. A framework is proposed calling for threshold criteria, statements of current conditions, predictions of trends to be watched, and alerts to warn of approaching environmental threats. A network of world, regional, and national assessment centers is recommended based on existing centers-of-excellence.Formerly a deputy associate administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). He was supported, in part, for this work under Department of State contract number 1751-000300, with project title: Global Environmental Monitoring System, 1979.National Marine Pollution Program Office, NOAA.The opinions and recommendations presented in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official policy or position of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Department of Commerce, or the U.S. Government.     

CURRENT USE OF WATER SURFACE ZONING FOR RECREATION1

ABSTRACT: As the many recreational uses of waterways have intensified, management agencies have increasingly turned to water surface zoning techniques to provide safe, equitable opportunities while also protecting aquatic habitats. Other publications have described the concept of water surface zoning; the study reported on was conducted to determine its current use nationwide. Depending on jurisdiction of the water surface in question and state legislation to zone water surfaces, nonfederal zoning regulations sometimes emanate directly from state government, and sometimes involve direct state and local government cooperation. Results of a national survey show that water surface zoning techniques employed by state and local governments in 1976–77 fall into five broad categories: restrictions on boat speed and horsepower, special use zoning, time zoining, protective space zoning, and limited density zoning. Examples of each are reported on in this paper.     

CONFLICTS IN ATTAINING NATIONAL GOALS FOR BOTH WATER QUALITY AND ENERGY PRODUCTION1

ABSTRACT: The “policy environment” is defined herein as the institutional setting in which planning is conducted and policy decisions are made with regard to meeting two of the Nation's high priority goals: water quality protection and energy independence. The simultaneous pursuit of these goals has resulted in numerous conflicts among the energy industry, environmentalists, and government. An analysis of selected energy development-water quality conflicts shows that these conflicts can be described in terms of one or more of the following policy environment characteristics: resource scarcity, sense of urgency, lack of experience, administrative complexity, uncertainty about future policies and regulations, technological complexity, and uncertainty about impacts. These characterics provide a useful framework for formulating potential strategies for the resolution of energy development-water quality conflicts.     

Multi-criteria PSO-based optimal design of grid-connected hybrid renewable energy systems

ABSTRACT

Human-induced climate change through the over liberation of greenhouse gases, resulting in devastating consequences to the environment, is a concern of considerable global significance which has fuelled the diversification to alternative renewable energy sources. The unpredictable nature of renewable resources is an impediment to developing renewable projects. More reliable, effective, and economically feasible renewable energy systems can be established by consolidating various renewable energy sources such as wind and solar into a hybrid system using batteries or back-up units like conventional energy generators or grids. The precise design of these systems is a critical step toward their effective deployment. An optimal sizing strategy was developed based on a heuristic particle swarm optimization (PSO) technique to determine the optimum number and configuration of PV panels, wind turbines, and battery units by minimizing the total system life-cycle cost while maximizing the reliability of the hybrid renewable energy system (HRES) in matching the electricity supply and demand. In addition, by constraining the amount of conventional electricity purchased from the grid, environmental concerns were also considered in the presented method. Various systems with different reliabilities and potential of reducing consumer’s CO₂ emissions were designed and the behavior of the proposed method was comprehensively investigated. An HRES may reduce the annualized cost of energy and carbon footprint significantly.     

Competition affects risk-sensitivity in foraging shrews

Summary Studies of risk-sensitive foraging have so far focused only on the effect of food demand on choice of feeding site. We suggest that competition is likely to be another factor influencing risksensitivity. A choice experiment with common shrews showed that, in the absence of competition, risk-aversion increased with increasing food intake relative to requirement. When apparent competitors were present, however, shrews were risk-indifferent regardless of their estimated requirement. The switch to risk-indifference in the presence of competitors appears to be an all-or-nothing rule of thumb which is not modified by experience with reward probability distributions.     

DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A COOPERATIVE WATER QUALITY MONITORING PROGRAM IN COLORADO'S BIG THOMPSON WATERSHED1

ABSTRACT: In 1996, the Big Thompson Watershed Forum (BTWF) was formed “to assess and protect the quality of water” in the Big Thompson Watershed in northern Colorado. However, until 1999, water quality monitoring in the watershed was performed by many state, local, and federal agencies with no coordination among programs and with few efforts toward efficiency, data comparability, or information exchange. To better meet the needs of its stakeholders, the BTWF since 1999 has been actively pursuing the design and implementation of a cooperative water quality monitoring program. The program design involved consensus building among the funding participants, primarily drinking water providers. The final design included 38 parameters to be sampled 15 times per year at 24 stream and canal locations plus two reservoirs. Although the collaborative consensus based approach has been successful for the BTWF, this approach has its drawbacks; most notable among these are the time and labor this approach requires. Also, the BTWF struggled with achieving equal representation of all interests, since those agencies that provided funding had the greatest voice in the final product. While a collaborative approach may not always be best for monitoring program design, it should be appropriate for many watershed organizations that face the common problem of severe financial constraints.     

COMBINED SEWER OVERFLOW CONTROL THROUGH IN-RECEWING WATER STORAGE: AN EFFICIENCY EVALUATION1

ABSTRACT: A demonstration and efficiency evaluation project was conducted for the flow balancing method (FBM) facility, a combined sewer overflow (CSO) storage facility at Fresh Creek in Brooklyn, New York City. The FBM is a curtained tank located directly in the receiving water that captures CSO. The CSO floats on top of and displaces Fresh Creek saltwater before it is pumped back to the publicly owned treatment works (POTW). The facility was a pilot scale subject to the full CSOs. The purpose of the project was to show how the FBM can withstand severe weather and tidal conditions and to develop a procedure for estimating CSO control efficiency (percentage of CSO pumped back to the POTW). The procedure proved successful and incorporated specific conductivity as a tracer in mass balance equations. These equations provided estimates of the net percent, capture-pumpback of the CSO using the FBM, including the amount of Fresh Creek water that was included in the pumpback to the P01W. The efficiency was directly related to the volume of the CSO and the pumpback rate and ranged from a low of 3.3 percent for the largest event to a high of 76.9 percent for the smallest event. Recent FBM enlargement should result in substantial increases in CSO control. The FBM facility has operated successfully for over five years, withstanding ice storms, near hurricane force winds and up to 7 ft tidal range.     

CHANNEL FORM AND STREAM ECOSYSTEM MODELS1

A system is proposed to classify running water habitats based on their channel form which can be considered in three different sedimentological settings: a cobble and boulder bed channel, a gravel bed channel, or a sand bed channel. Three physical factors (relief, lithology, and runoff) are selected as state factors that control all other interacting parameters associated with channel form. When these factors are integrated across the conterminous United States, seven distinct stream regions are evident, each representing a most probable succession of channel forms downstream from the headwaters to the mouth. Coupling these different channel profiles with typical biotic community structures usually associated with each of the channel types should result in considerable refinement of the applicability of the River Continuum Concept and other holistic ecosystem models by realizing the nonrandomness of the effects of geo-morphology on stream ecosystems. Thus, this regional perspective of streams should serve to make persons concerned with water resources more aware of the geographical considerations that affect their study areas.